We’re all familiar with how anchor stores work in a mall. They’re the marquee stores that make all of the rest of the stores in the mall viable by attracting the critical mass of consumers to the mall whose spending overflows into smaller stores in addition to benefitting the main attractions themselves. It’s a proven model, but in all likelihood, most readers probably have not considered how the concept of the anchor store might apply to the US economy at large. Yet, it does! In the broader economy, anchor stores are the industries that create higher paying jobs, which in turn generate additional jobs as small and medium businesses position themselves to service the needs of the marquee companies in those industries as well as their workers who are typically well-off enough to have some extra spending money. Economists have long recognized the “anchor store industry” principle though they haven’t necessarily used that metaphor to describe it. What’s more, economic history has proven out that the principle works.
Today, Katie Couric formally confirmed what we have known for weeks – she’s leaving the anchor chair at CBS News . Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes is expected to be named her successor possibly as soon as next week. Aside from being unable to lift CBS News out of the doldrums, Couric will be remembered for her Sarah Palin interview which Palin herself admits wasn’t her finest hour. Yet when I think of Couric’s tenure at CBS News I think not of her interview with Palin but rather with the former Alaska Governor’s Democratic vice-presidential rival Joe Biden. This was the interview in which
Los Angeles’ 2010 Anchor Baby Tab Comes to $600 Million
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Los Angeles’ 2010 Anchor Baby Tab Comes to $600 Million
Soledad learned the hard way, race hustlers Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton decide who does and doesn’t count… (Newsbusters) – CNN personality Soledad O’Brien revealed in her new book that liberal activist Jesse Jackson put her down for her skin color during a private meeting in 2007. During the meeting, Jackson complained to O’Brien, whose mother is a black woman from Cuba, that there weren’t any black anchors on CNN. When she pointed out that she was the anchor of American Morning, the activist replied, “ You don’t count .” O’Brien, who is now a special correspondent for CNN, recounted the 2007 incident in “The Next Big Story,” which CNN.com excerpted on November 3 . Just before her meeting with Jackson, the journalist had obtained “exclusive access to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s papers,” as the lead-in for the excerpt underlined. Soon after this, as O’Brien recalled, “Jackson calls with an invitation to meet and talk.” The two met at a restaurant “on the first floor of a famous hotel” and in the course of their conversation, the subject of the racial makeup of her network came up: Today he is angry because CNN doesn’t have enough black anchors. It is political season. There are billboards up sporting Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper. He asks after the black reporters. Why are they not up there? I share his concern and make a mental note to take it back to my bosses. But then he begins to rage that there are no black anchors on the network at all. Does he mean covering the campaign, I wonder to myself? The man has been a guest on my show. He knows me, even if he doesn’t recall how we met. I brought him on at MSNBC, then again at Weekend Today. I interrupt to remind him I’m the anchor of American Morning. He knows that. He looks me in the eye and reaches his fingers over to tap a spot of skin on my right had. He shakes his head. “You don’t count,” he says . I wasn’t sure what that meant. I don’t count- what? I’m not black? I’m not black enough? Or my show doesn’t count? I was both angry and embarrassed, which rarely happens at the same time for me. Jesse Jackson managed to make me ashamed of my skin color which even white people had never been able to do ….If Reverend Jesse Jackson didn’t think I was black enough, then what was I? My parents had so banged racial identity into my head that the thoughts of racial doubt never crossed my mind. I’d suffered an Afro through the heat of elementary school. I’d certainly never felt white. I thought my version of black was as valid as anybody else’s. I was a product of my parents (black woman, white man) my town (mostly white), multiracial to be sure, but not black? I felt like the foundation I’d built my life on was being denied, as if someone was telling me my parents aren’t my parents….The arbiter of blackness had weighed in. I had been measured and found wanting. Keep reading…
Excerpt from:
Jesse Jackson to CNN’s Soledad O’Brien: “You Don’t Count” as Black…
Yesterday, August 24, 2010, this story headlined in Politico: CBS ties news ratings low Last week, “CBS Evening News” tied the all-time ratings low set last summer for a network evening news broadcast, TV Newser reports . An average of 4.89 million total viewers tuned into CBS for evening news last week, behind 6.51 million for ABC and 7.42 million for NBC. On October 16, 2006 — almost four years ago — I noted this about Katie Couric’s takeover of the CBS anchor chair. After seeing her ratings briefly skyrocket with an appearance from Rush Limbaugh in a “free speech” segment, Couric’s ratings were almost immediately headed south. I wrote: CBS and Ms. Couric’s failure illustrates a point that was easily predictable before Katie even sat down in the anchor chair. Putting Rush Limbaugh on CBS air in a “free speech” segment certainly pumped Couric’s ratings for a moment. But conservatives — Reagan were he here and surely Limbaugh himself — realized exactly what the problem was that lie ahead. CBS tried to demonstrate that they were free of liberal bias by giving ol’ Rush a few seconds of airtime. What they had no intention of doing was eliminating the liberal bias of the show’s writers, producers and reporters, much less of Ms. Couric herself. Result? The new boss is the same as the old boss. The philosophical presentation of the new CBS News hasn’t changed a whit from the days when Dan or Walter or Bill Moyers looked somberly into the lens to insist they were telling the news “the way it was.” Still, there had to be a terrifying “ping” when CBS execs realized that Rush Limbaugh brought higher ratings to CBS News than Dan Rather ever could. Could — would — that ever happen? Would they have the guts to make “America’s anchorman” the CBS anchorman? The people in charge of CBS News would sooner crunch down on a cyanide tablet before naming Rush Limbaugh or any other conservative the anchor and managing editor of their show. Even if it meant winning the ratings for the next century. Fair and balanced is not now or ever in the cards at CBS, and Ms. Couric’s ratings have tumbled accordingly. Besides, why would Rush Limbaugh want a demotion? It is now 2010. ” The Rush Limbaugh Show ” – featuring Rush as “America’s real anchorman” – cruises along in ratings heaven . I ts host not that long ago sign ed a new contract for a reported $400 million over 8 years. And Couric’s CBS Evening News is in the sad state reported yesterday by Politico . Will the CBS folks learn anything from this umpteenth lesson in media? Naaaaaaaaaaaah. Enough said.
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Katie Couric and Rush: Ratings Non-Shocker
